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Once Again, It Is Time...

Bard2dbone

Bard2dbone

Aug 4, 2002
6,760
846
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Arlington TX
#1
for my yearly pilgrimage to the hill country.

Next weekend I will be living in a flexible nylon hut on the side of a hill surrounded by stinky hippies and acoustic music.

I'm going for a couple of days next weekend, coming back to work a week and see my daughter graduate, and then going back there for a week.

The schedule this year feels a little lopsided. The first weekend is the most awesome lineup I've seen in maybe ever. But most of the rest of the festival nights are pretty good to just okay.

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#3
The answer to that is...Yes, mostly.

The mainstage shows range from solo guitar to full band. The instrumentation on those shows also can vary pretty widely. So a full band might be your basic 'two guitars, bass & drums' generic band...oooooooooooor it might be 'mandolin, accordion, bass balalaika, penny whistles, harmonica & trombone', and anything in between. Maybe not. But I wouldn't be surprised..

Groovelilly was a trio with a six-string electric violin, keys and hand percussion, I think. Or maybe violin, grand piano, drum kit. It's hard to remember. Another act I saw was piano and grand harp. Another had three ukeleles a guitar and a cello. Tom Prasada-Rao had three guitars, a dotar, an electric sitar, bass guitar, keys & drums for one song

But that's all on the main stage. Out in the campgrounds, it can get REALLY weird.

But mostly it doesn't. The majority of songcircles have no bass.

If they have one, it can be nearly anything. I've seen normal acoustic URB's, aluminum body URB's, washtub basses, ABG's, solidbody and semi-hollow bass guitars with battery powered amps of assorted levels of effectiveness, a bass banjo, bass balalaikas, and a couple of very cool variations on washtub basses called 'cabletubs'.

The 'cabletub' has a washtub for the body of the bass. But in stead of the mostly unattached stick that a typical washtub bass would have, it has a full URB scale neck standing up in the center of the diaphragm of the tub bottom, braced so that the neck is held in place by cables and braces like the mast of a sailboat. The strings are mounted in the center of the tub bottom and just happen to run right up the fingerboard, exactly like they would on a regular URB. It sounded amazingly like a real regular URB. The night I found out these things existed I saw two. One had three strings (EAD), and the other only had two (EA). The guy carrying the three string one had it and a guitar. I asked about it. He let me play a song on it with him on guitar. Then he promptly drafted me to be his bass player for the night. He said "You're a ral bass player. I'm a guitar player who has basses. If you stay with me tonight, it ought to be good." We played several circles. It was good.
 
#4
Here's some examples.

Bard2dbone in another thread said:
How's this for cool?
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The bass banjo has a cut down marching bass drum for a body with strips of spruce to brace the head. The one I'm holding in the second pic is a different kind of washtub bass, The top is plywood. The rest of the body is a washtub. The guy with the bass banjo in the second pic is the one who built/devised it.


And here's Keith Grimwood of Trout Fishing In America playing my favorite Clevinger ever.
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Of course I probably only like that Clevinger so much because of what Keith plays on it.
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#6
I'd actually forgotten the other other nonstandard washtub bass that I included in the pics. You can find a lot of different approaches to everything starting with music at the KFF.

I'm pretty psyched about it.

One thing that's different this year is that I'll be taking an acoustic six string, a Taylor 114ce. I only got it a few months back. It was a Christmas present to myself. I've mostly been taking my 12-string, a Taylor 355ce. The Taylor 12 is the only instrument I've ever paid full price for and left un-modded. I usually buy cheap ones and fix them up until they're what I wanted in the first place, but couldn't afford.
 
#7
Well I'm back for a few days. I have to work three nights. Then my daughter graduates and I go back.

Sunday night was the best concert night maybe ever. It was incredible: (John) Elliot-(Rayna) Rose-(Anthony) Da Costa, then The New Agrarians, which is Tom Kimmel, Kate Campbell, & Pierce Pettis, then Berkley Hart, Then Tom Prasada-Rao, and finally bettysoo. Amazing.

When I first saw the schedule listing, I didn't knowto be impressed. I'd never heard of Elliot,, Rose, DaCosta or the New Agrarians. But both turned out to be trios in which two thirds were musicians I already was a big fan of. Then Berkley Hart are incredible. Their song "My name is Sam" just might be the best written song I've ever heard. Tom Prasada-Rao put on a hell of a show. Then bettysoo. She has the voice that angels wish they could have.

Incredible.
 

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